Many poker professionals have been catapulted to fame by their performance on televised poker.

Perhaps none have experienced as meteoric a rise as Gus Hansen. Known for his hyper-aggressive tactics, Hansen has come to typify the "loose aggressive" (LAG) style of play, a style that many players find intriguing, yet difficult to master. In Every Hand Revealed, Hansen walks us hand-by-hand through a tournament in which he emerged victorious. Those who are looking for a comprehensive textbook on "playing the Gus Hansen way" will not find what they seek in this book. Hansen does reveal thoughts about general poker strategy, but only as they apply to individual situations he encounters while winning the 2007 Aussie Millions poker tournament. If the reader is one of those people who does not like to wade through hand histories, pass on this book. Hand histories with commentary are pretty much all you get here.

The tournament chronicled here was a four day event, so naturally enough, Hansen uses time to mark his chapter boundaries. We get one chapter for each of the first three days. The final day is divided up into four chapters as the field thins. The concluding chapter provides a statistical analysis of Hansen's play and sums up some of the lessons imparted at various points in the book.

The fi rst thing we notice is that Hansen does not play as many hands as his reputation would lead us to believe. This is especially true on day 1. In fact, during day 1, I would estimate his "tightness" was above average for the tournament fi eld. Towards the end of Day 1 and during much of Day 2, the antes start to become more significant, and Hansen steps up his aggression. Still, we don't see any signs of the Gus Hansen who calls all-in with ten-eight offsuit, or pushes all-in with king-nine. In fact, I would describe his play in this book as closer to "tightaggressive" than "looseaggressive."

So, as strange as it might seem, those who are looking for an understanding of LAG no-limit play won't fi nd it here. This isn't to say that the book doesn't have any good advice on poker. It does, but it's not as substantive as I might have hoped. Still, Hansen presents occasional bits of real insight here, and it's clear that whatever one might think of how the author plays, he is definitely a thinking poker player. Hansen is also quite forthright about the mistakes he makes. When he thinks that in retrospect he screwed up in a given spot, he comes right out and says it. I feel we have to respect his candor.

Overall, I found the book to be interesting, but neither engrossing nor terribly ground-breaking. I was hoping to get some insight into the "Gus Hansen persona" we have seen on television, but Every Hand Revealed profiles a different player than I had expected.

The book still contains insights and good advice, but not as much as I had hoped. I think the book is worth reading, but I'm guessing that for most readers there are other volumes out there that would be more beneficial.